Why do we love them so much in the UK?
Or is it more widerspread? I seem to spend half my life Googling abbvs to find their meaning.

Idk

TL, DR.

WOMBAT

Lol.

OMG FU

Dilliga….

It comes from living in the UK as opposed to the USA or the UAE or the USSR or Canada.

STW chat forum – acronym central.
A few years ago did some work with the MoD – that is, ministry of defence; after first meeting with the client (them) was asked for my comments – responded that I didn’t understand more than 50% of what was discussed due to obsessive use of acronyms.
Following day received their semi-official acronym buster document; bigger than all the Harry Potter books combined.
Great way to keep people out.

widerspread

WTAF? Either you’re from Midsomer Norton or mental. FWIW, IMHO.

Don’t go near mumsnet if you can’t handle initialisation. In fact don’t go there anyway

STW chat forum – acronym central.

Pffft not a touch on Mumsnet. Like the MOD they have their own acronym buster page:
https://www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms

You need DDG then you can !af ACRONYM_HERE in the search bar.

I’m in the middle of my NEBOSH a General Cert at the moment, its acronym crazy!

Following day received their semi-official acronym buster document; bigger than all the Harry Potter books combined.
Great way to keep people out.

Theres a ‘University of the Highlands and Islands’ known as UHI for short. I did some work with them back in the day when they weren’t yet an official university yet but a ‘project to become a university’ – strictly speaking the were “the University of the Highlands and Islands Project’.

During this time they were simply known as ‘UHI’ but I was given a lengthy document explaining how they intended to become a university, and that the were offering university level education, the ‘U’ in ‘UHI’ didn’t stand for ‘University’. And the organisation must not be referred to as a university (even though it was the same as a university in practice).

It then went into into further detail – its to be written ‘UHI’ not ‘U.H.I’ as that would imply the letters stood for something. That was followed pronunciation guidelines – it wasn’t ‘the UHI’, just ‘UHI’ and it was pronounced ‘You hatch Eye’ on ‘You-high’ or ‘uh-hee’ 🙂

Hatch?

NORWICH

Cougar – Moderator
Hatch?

Terribly posh H

Round here the letter J is pronounced Jeye (rhymes with eye) – rather than Jay. Localism…

It’s worse in France and Francophone countries where they have a habit of creating acronyms out of the names of companies. Just a few I can think of having worked in France:

CROUS ISIPCA CRICA SAMU CMACGM SNECMA

i used to work in education and my boss’s favourite joke was ‘education is an industry built upon three letter acronyms, or TLAs as we like to call them.’

I don’t mind abbreviations and acronyms. What annoys me is people thinking all abbreviations are acronyms 👿

I don’t mind abbreviations and acronyms. What annoys me is people thinking all abbreviations are acronyms

Agreed:

“An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase or a word, usually individual letters (as in NATO or laser) and sometimes syllables (as in Benelux).“

So “VAT” is an acronym, “TLC” is an abbreviation.

“TLC” is an abbreviation

Hang on, let me mull that over for a bit.

I don’t mind abbreviations and acronyms. What annoys me is people thinking all abbreviations are acronyms

Do you think I was going to leave myself open with the thread title?
I find some people who use abbreviations tend to use them to demonstrate their superior knowledge of a topic, or to attempt to demonstrate their knowledge. It doesn’t wash with me, because if you want to use a secret code, it’ll remain secret unless you explain it to me. Or you could just choose to communicate you point first time.

So “VAT” is an acronym, “TLC” is an abbreviation.

If we’re playing the pointless pedantry card (PPC), TLC is an initialism.

and an initialism is a form of abbreviation.

Yes, it is. Here’s your card.

THX 🙂

And most people say V-A-T, not VAT, so arguably it’s both. Agree that most ‘acronyms’ aren’t though.

I find some people who use abbreviations tend to use them to demonstrate their superior knowledge of a topic, or to attempt to demonstrate their knowledge. It doesn’t wash with me, because if you want to use a secret code, it’ll remain secret unless you explain it to me. Or you could just choose to communicate you point first time

I’d go the other way – people who talk in TLAs don’t generally know what they’re talking about, but want to appear that they do. People who do know what they’re on about won’t use them as much. Not in conversation at least.

My favourite is the Reactor Services Active Workshop at Rosyth. Need to be careful how you say that one in a Scottish accent.

I use both V-A-T and VAT. No consistency in when I use one or the other.

Another acronym in very common (mis)use is PIN (Personal Identification Number) which makes “Please enter your PIN number” slightly odd 🙄

As for using abbreviations to demonstrate superior knowledge, in technical documents that we use all abbreviations and acronyms (even if completely understood within the industry) have to be defined before use. Typically there’s a “Abbreviations used in this document” table near the start. You get bollocked if you don’t do so.

My wife started her career working a a branch of a bank in the East End of Glasgow and the manager there had a particular fondness for acronyms / abbreviations / initialisms.

He would mark up the personal loan applications of the the local chancers with a variety of them to indicate rejection.

My favourites were GTF (Please go away) and TAFFARD (Take a flying **** at a rollin’ doughnut).

In my own career I have seen many site managers award the DCM (Don’t come Monday) and the BFH ( Bus Fare Home ) to underperforming site operatives.